A Song Stolen from the Dirt
by odditycollector
Summary: Long ago, a man sought to control death with a feather stolen from an angel. It... didn't go as he'd hoped. Crossover with Neil Gaiman's Sandman.


**A Song Stolen From the Dirt**

--

Andrew McCullen lost his job that day, but he had been a desperate man for far longer. He sat at the bar, clutching a lottery ticket bought with the last few pence he possessed. He was slowly sobering, his mug of long empty of ale, but his face was still bright and his lips moved ceaselessly, meaninglessly, as if in prayer. There was a set to his expression of a man who had looked to tomorrow and seen the darkness at the end of the world.

But after speaking with the strange man who brought him a pint, Andrew smiled for the first time in weeks. He used the ticket stub to light a cigarette, realizing suddenly that his gambling was a cause for his misery, not a solution. There was always hope, and the thought of tomorrow no longer seemed suffocating. His children were waiting for him to return, and in them he was already a rich man, and maybe even God had not forsaken him in the bowels of London.

It wouldn't be until two days later that Andrew would learn he had held the winning ticket, worth money enough to buy a physic for his daughter and an education for his son.

--

The Arrangement worked well for both of them, so Crowley didn't mind helping Aziraphale out now and again. The angel was currently off somewhere, trying to forestall the looming war. Not that he was against the idea of war, mind you, but he was convinced that this one must be the work of evil just because Crowley had set it off. Crowley had, rather reasonably, argued that if the civilized world was going to topple because he had changed the route on a paper map, it was all a bit of an overreaction and was probably going to happen anyway, but Aziraphale would have none of it.

He had scribbled out a long list of good deeds he hadn't gotten around to yet, and told Crowley that since he had tried to undermine all the work Aziraphale had put into the last century without thinking to inform the angel first, Crowley could very well cover for him while he tried to sort it out, thank you very much. Then he left before Crowley could do more than sputter at the unfairness of the whole thing.

Crowley was now down to the last item. Although Aziraphale's handwriting was usually primly neat, the angel had been in rather a hurry near the end of the list and some of the words were hard to make out. It was a standard affirmation of faith job, for someone called... Thomason? Theodore?

Crowley glared at the paper, then crumpled it and shoved it in his pocket, not caring that doing so wouldn't help much with the legibility problem. He walked down a damp cobblestone street and was completely unnoticed by two syphilitic prostitutes. They approached a nervous young business man instead, giggling and using the flickering lamplight to their advantage. The man stammered for a few seconds, and then pulled out his money. He was newly, happily, married, with a promising future, but the pox would drive him mad. Crowley smiled to himself.

As he turned a corner, Crowley felt something ring through him, like a voice calling from afar. He frowned in a surprise that quickly gave way to curiosity. Someone was trying to summon an angel. Crowley recognized the magic, of course; he had once made a hobby of answering it and giving out advice for the best ways to burn witches and stone peasants and get into heaven, when asked. But that had been a while ago, and he had thought that ritual forgotten and buried, possibly by Aziraphale.(1)

Crowley opened his wings and leapt into the air, badly startling a horse that had been pulling a carriage past him. He flew in a wide circle to determine the direction of the spell and then headed towards it.

He touched down behind a moderately large stable and pulled in his wings. He straightened his wind-ruffled hair with a thought, and imagined wearing something black and impressive. There was a name nailed into the wall, covered in dirt and old rot and nearly as illegible as Aziraphale's paper. The door in front of him was locked, but Crowley had rarely met a door impudent enough to really mean it.

As soon as he stepped inside, Crowley was surrounded by the cloying smell of rotting hay and dust and incense. A deep, rumbling voice underscored the more fundamental vibrations coming from the centre of the stable. By the meticulously drawn symbols was a large man, bald and ugly and just beginning to be faded by age. The usual sort, then.

The man, perhaps sensing a presence, stopped chanting in Hebrew and turned towards Crowley. The light of two dozen thick candles reflected from his small eyes, and Crowley wondered vaguely if he knew how easily the old barn could go up in flames.

"Hi," Crowley said, stepping out of the shadows. "Er, do you have any horses for rent?"

The beady eyes narrowed. "I think not." Behind the perfume and smoke Crowley caught another scent, one he was unfortunately familiar with. There was a type of evil that marked the world with its stench, far removed from the lovingly administered corruption, the _quality_ evil Crowley prided himself on providing. It was a human bred evil, and Crowley had no desire to be involved with it.

"Right. I'll just be leaving, then."

As he began to turn, the man said, "Do you know what you've interrupted, fool? Can you even understand what I'm attempting here, this night? I mean to call down one of the host of heaven."

"Why?" Crowley asked, despite himself.

"I will control Death."

Crowley snorted, but managed to stop himself from laughing outright. Not exactly an original goal, that. But, also, not something angels have a lot of involvement with, exempting the occasional temper tantrum.

He sighed inwardly. There were other ways of getting an angel's attention, if one was determined to succeed, and not all of them so merely irritating. Crowley had a brief flash of Aziraphale, snared in some pitiful rule until he granted this idiot immortality. Which he couldn't, of course, which meant heaven would have to send down a new agent to replace him, when it had taken Crowley five thousand years to properly condition the first one.

"Well, it doesn't look like you're having much luck, so what say you forget about the whole thing?" Crowley said, calculating how easy it would be to knock over a few candles and block the doors. It wasn't as if burning to death would be the asshole's last taste of Hell.

The human looked back to his preparations, his lumpy features broken into an ironic grin. "Yes," he said. "Sometimes I look at the world, and I believe such beings of grace are just dreams to calm those who fear what lies beneath the surface of reality." He picked up a candle and held it closer to Crowley, but pools of shadow remained in front of Crowley's eyes.(2) "But dreams have a way of coming true," he added thoughtfully.

Crowley thought about this. It didn't sound quite like a crisis of faith, especially considering the source, but still... He pulled out Aziraphale's list and tried to smooth it out.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The human looked at his suspiciously. "Burgess," he said, after a moment, ending the name in a hiss that hinted at another.(3)

Crowley studied the last word on the paper, squinting in the candlelight. It _could_ be Burgess, he decided. Sure, there was enough malice in his beady eyes to give _Crowley_ the creeps, but hope springs eternal, and all that. And, besides, there was nothing like an angel for instilling the fear of God in someone.

With an audible sigh this time, Crowley opened his wings behind him. All the light in the stable gathered around him, drowning the nearby candles and leaving the rest of the place impossibly dark, a lack of light felt as a chill in the soul. A strain of Mozart Crowley particularly enjoyed drifted around him. It sounded, and he was especially happy with this detail, because it would have anyone who really knew about angels onto him in a second, like it was played on harps.

"Hearken," he announced. "Your prayers have not been spoken in vain. My Lord has sent an angel to speak thus: Lo-"

Crowley blinked in surprise. He stopped pontificating and gaped at Burgess, who had just darted forward and snatched a feather from his wing. He was gazing at the bright feather in triumph.

"What the _fuck!_" Crowley snarled. The human seemed to realize he had made a serious error, and he began backing up.

"I apologize," he began, "For my audacity-"

Crowley realized one of the circles on the floor was a protection spell. He lunged for Burgess, but the human ran into its centre and whispered a few words under his breath. Crowley could have broken into it, if he felt like making the effort, but he wasn't sure he wanted to explain the situation to whatever demon had lent the human power.

"Forgive my insult," Burgess was saying. "This reminder of your glory-"

"If you wanted blesssed _ssouvineerss_ you sshould have gone to Parisss!" Crowley paced a few steps and then spun around. The old timbers of the stable vibrated with his anger. "Fuck!" he hissed.

Burgess was staring at him calmly, which infuriated Crowley even more. He realized he probably looked ridiculous, stomping and hissing while candlelight followed him around and soft music echoed in his footsteps. He gestured with a hand and the light went back where it belonged, and he once again appeared to be a man in a dark suit.

"You know what? Keep the blessed feather," Crowley said, suddenly calm. "I hope it brings you all the happiness in the world, I really do."

Burgess's dark eyes rested on him. "You are truly a kind and noble being."

Crowley was very still for a moment. He made a show of adjusting his overcoat, and then turned slowly to face the human. "Say that again," he said, "and I will make you long for hell."

Something shifted in Burgess's expression. Crowley walked from the decaying barn, the front door opening before him like a gateway, and slamming shut behind him with the exact wind necessary to extinguish every candle. Crowley knew that the human would spend the rest of the night huddled in his sphere of borrowed power, tasting an unexpected fear. Some demon had probably gotten a soul out of the deal, but Crowley would have told them not to bother. Some people had _**Return to Sender**_ stamped across their face.

Crowley realized Aziraphale's list was still clutched in his palm. He looked at it with loathing, and it blackened under his stare until it was ash. The night was cool and empty, but he opted to walk back to his residence instead of taking to the air. The thought of unfolding his wings made him remember Burgess's face as he stroked the brilliant, white feather. It made Crowley feel ill and vaguely contaminated.

He was in the better part of London, which just meant the whores were less obviously diseased. He watched a young merchant listening to what a girl wearing too much rouge had to offer. He just _knew_ they were going to fall in love and, family shame aside, live more or less happily ever after. Crowley felt honour bound to prevent it, but the honour of a demon isn't worth much, especially one who was exhausted after a day of playing angel and who wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and sleep away another century. He glanced over, as he passed them by, and they could interpret his sickened expression however they wanted. It was disgusting, that much happiness.

But, still, he meant what he had said to Burgess. It was all contrast, he felt, not that anyone below cared about his opinion on the matter. What was the point of damning slaves? He had asked Aziraphale that once, when the angel had been surprised to see him campaigning for freedom. They suffered, sure, but it was just more of the same. You needed to tempt Kings and nobles and freemen, otherwise why bother? God was pretty screwed in the head, for making sin feel so good, because the higher you were, the harder it hurt when you fell.

Aziraphale had just looked at him askance, but he had seen the angel spending more time on peasants and prisoners after that particular conversation.

Burgess was already one of the damned. Crowley wished him nothing but luck, and joy, and success, and devoted acolytes, and beautiful women and men, and no curse in life except for one.

_May you have all the happiness in the world._

--

(1) There was probably a reason why Aziraphale would ignore people so desperate for guidance, but the one time Crowley had brought it up, the angel had changed the subject with fresh wine, and they had ended the evening by pretending to fall off skyscrapers until the police arrived.

(2) Crowley liked to stand at the precise angle so that the light hid his eyes in pools of blackness. This is not to say that he remained stationary, but rather that the shadows tended to follow him.

Of course, darkness is really just a lack of photons and probabilities and waveforms and gives no preferential treatment to demons, but Crowley liked to think it did.

(3) Humans tend to believe more in the names society gives them than the names they give themselves. (The man known to the world as Burgess was an exception to this mostly infallible rule, but he once traded his true name in an off shot at immortality, and died secure that, at least, no devil could claim that without a title.) Angels and demons seem to do the same, but in actuality their situation is much more complex and existential and difficult to explain.

And then there are other entities, of this world or beyond it, that have many names, all of which are true. One can imagine the difficulty they suffer with introductions - it would be worse than meeting Aragorn.


End file.
